


digging my own grave

by daringyounggrayson



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Blood, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Dick Grayson is Robin, Father-Son Relationship, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Nausea, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28186296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daringyounggrayson/pseuds/daringyounggrayson
Summary: After an argument with Bruce, Dick retaliates by running off to a not-so-safe part of Gotham. During his misadventure, he drinks a slushie, stops an attempted robbery, and lands himself in someone else’s trunk. He can’t exactly say that his current situation is a surprise, but that doesn’t mean getting out of it is going to be a piece of cake. Especially when he has a head injury working against him.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 27
Kudos: 178
Collections: BatFam Winter Gift Exchange 2020, Dick Grayson Whump





	digging my own grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aelig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelig/gifts).



> I got to write a fic for the lovely Aelig! I hope you like it <3
> 
> Prompt:
>
>> **Name:** Aelig  
>  **Fav character:** Dick Grayson  
>  **Three Favorite relationships (romantic and non-romantic marked):** Dick Grayson & Donna Troy (non-romantic), Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne (non-romantic), Dick Grayson & Stephanie Brown (non-romantic).  
>  **What are three things you love to see? (Think tropes or moods):** Hurt/Comfort, Forehead kisses, Kidnapping.  
>  **Any important nopes?:** Batcest, Major Character Death, TimSteph or CassSteph, abusive relationship, alcohol.

In retrospect, Dick made a lot of stupid decisions tonight.

The first stupid decision had been starting up the concert argument again which, at this point, is a losing battle that isn’t really about a concert anymore. Dick still doesn’t understand how going on a mission in space isn’t a big deal but going to a concert with a few friends who happen to be in college is. Especially since Dick met the “college kids” when they were all still in high school together. And, besides, a couple of the people he went on the space mission with are the same age as the aforementioned college kids.

Dick didn’t—doesn’t—even care about the concert that much; he’s annoyed that Bruce is being a controlling hypocrite and treating Dick like a child. He’s annoyed that after all these years of continuously proving himself to Bruce, the man still doesn’t trust him.

So what did Dick do to show Bruce why he should trust him? A series of stupid, stupid things that served the sole purpose of making Bruce angry. And to make it worse, Dick _knew_ how stupid they were and chose to do them anyway. He knew he was being stupid when he left his phone at home, and he knew he was being stupid when he ignored Bruce’s use of Dick’s full name as he left the grounds. He knew he was being stupid when he immediately drove to a not-so-safe part of Gotham just so he could rub it in Bruce’s face later.

The point is, Dick knows it won’t be fun when he eventually has to face Bruce’s wrath and whatever punishment is waiting for him the second he gets home—but Dick doesn’t care. Right now, Bruce is an ass and Dick finally has some space to think, to breathe. Plus, just by sitting outside this gas station and drinking a cherry slushie at eleven o’clock at night, in perfect view of a security camera no less, he knows he’s making Bruce furious. That part’s fun. So is thinking about how Bruce is probably watching him from said security camera, fuming and trying to figure out how to handle the situation he’s found himself in. It’s almost worth the inevitable grounding. (Almost.)

It stays fun right up until Dick notices two guys walking into the gas station, hiding their faces. Dick watches them carefully, still sipping his slushie and doing his best to seem innocuous. The second they pull out guns, Dick runs in, wishing he’d brought his phone with him so he could’ve called the police first. Wishing he’d brought a mask so he could’ve had more options.

But, stupid mistakes already made, he only has one option: get their attention and disarm them.

What happens after entering the gas station is kind of a blur. He remembers getting their attention, and he remembers emptying bullets onto the floor, so he must have disarmed them. But he’s not sure how quickly or efficiently he’d done that; he’d heard gunshots, he’s sure of that much, but he doesn’t remember if anyone had been hit.

He also remembers that he’d been recognized as Bruce Wayne’s kid at some point, and the situation had quickly shifted from a robbery/mugging to a kidnapping. Dick remembers trying to resist, and he’s pretty sure he broke someone’s nose in the process. The last thing he’s sure about is being pinned to the ground. He can’t remember which goon had done that, but before Dick could so much as think about getting out of the hold, they’d slammed his head against the ground hard enough to knock him unconscious for a second, hard enough to disorient him long enough to shove him in a trunk.

Now, in the trunk, Dick realizes another stupid decision he’d made: he didn’t bring his Robin belt with him and now getting out of this isn’t going to be a piece of cake.

What feels like fifteen minutes later, Dick’s tied to a chair in some car repair shop with a skull-splitting headache. His situation isn’t exactly ideal, but he knows that if it comes down to it, he’ll be able to get out of this—he’s Robin the Boy Wonder after all. It just won’t be easy, and his odds of coming out of it unscathed aren’t exactly low. Especially since the two men have guns again and Dick’s pretty sure his head is already bleeding.

The more Dick thinks about it, the more he hopes that Bruce _had_ been watching him on that security camera.

“Alright, kid, what’s daddy’s number?”

Dick tilts his head up to look at the guy holding the phone, trying to figure out why he wants a dead man’s phone num—oh. Bruce. He means Bruce.

Dick doesn’t usually have to type Bruce’s number. It’s not often that he calls Bruce, and when he does, it’s almost always on his cellphone, so Dick just dials from his contacts. He knows the number by heart anyway though. It's just that the pounding in his head—the one that’s getting worse the more he tries to focus—is making it hard to think; it’s making it take longer to access the information Dick knows is there.

“Uh,” Dick starts, trying to recall the numbers and what order they go in. But then again, is it even worth it? Will Bruce answer a call from an unknown number? And what time is it? The odds of him answering drop significantly if he’s already on patrol. Maybe Dick should call Alfred instead.

Impatient, phone-guy kicks Dick’s chair, sending him back a few inches with a screech. Dick blinks as the world spins and his stomach threatens to give up his slushie.

“Come on! I’m not asking again.”

“Chill, man,” the other guy cuts in, voice sounding slightly off and distorted. He has dried blood on his face and his nose looks crooked.

 _Huh_ , Dick thinks, _guess I did break someone’s nose._

“You chill.”

Another kick to the chair, and this time it forces a mouthful of cherry slushie into his mouth. Dick grimaces as he forces it back down, squeezing his eyes shut as someone yells at him and tugs his head back by his hair.

Dick rattles off Bruce’s number, hoping that he’ll answer so Dick can go home and forget about all of his stupid, stupid decisions. Maybe Bruce will even take pity on him and forgo the lecture and grounding—not that Dick will be leaving the house any time soon if this headache is an indication of anything.

A phone is shoved against his ear and Dick flinches at the contact, snapping his eyes open and looking around.

“Dick? Are you alright?” Bruce is asking, voice controlled but urgent.

“Where are you?” Dick asks.

“I’m on my way,” Bruce says. “Everything will be alright, I promise.”

Dick doesn’t feel alright; maybe Bruce hadn’t been watching the cameras. “Did you see me?”

“Wha—”

The phone is gone and the lights shut off.

“Shit, shit, shit,” nose-guy rambles, voice higher than before as he slaps his hand over Dick’s mouth. Dick twists his head to try to get out of the man’s grip but it doesn’t work.

“Shut _up_ ,” phone-guy hisses. “Do you want to get caught?”

“Come out with your hands up!”

Dick’s first thought is a sarcastic _guess the GCPD isn’t completely useless_ , and his second is one of relief. The third is that he should probably help them out, so he starts shouting behind the hand covering his mouth and kicking his legs against the chair, trying to create as much noise as possible.

“Shit, shit, shit,” nose-guy repeats, working himself into a conniption. “What do we do?”

“Would you pull it together,” phone-guy hisses, simultaneously slapping his hand over nose-guy and trying to still Dick’s legs. “Kid, if you don’t chill out, I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

Dick knows a bluff when he hears one, and Dick also knows this guy knows he’s about to get caught and doesn’t want to add murder to his list of charges. So Dick keeps yelling, and— _shocker_ —his head stays bullet-free.

Not even a minute later, a flashlight dances across Dick’s face, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut. When he opens them again, he can make out two police officers, both wielding guns and flashlights.

The one yells, “Hands up—now!”

The hand is gone from Dick’s mouth and his legs are no longer being held down.

“Okay. Keep them up and step away from the kid. Nice and slow.”

The other officer moves to Dick’s side, immediately going to untie the ropes. “You alright, kid?”

“Yeah,” Dick says, moving his arms in front of him and rubbing at his wrist once the ropes are gone. The officer presses something—gauze, probably—against Dick’s still bleeding head. He winces, holding back a hiss. “Aside from my head.”

“Sorry about that. EMTs are on their way,” the officer assures, keeping a straight face and not giving any indication of how bad the injury is. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Richard Grayson,” Dick says. Instead of looking at the officer, Dick watches as the wanna-be kidnappers are led out of the car repair shop in handcuffs.

“Alright, Richard, while we wait for medical to get down here, how about we call your parents and let them know you’re okay, yeah?”

Dick nods and rattles off Bruce’s number.

oOo

Dick’s would-be kidnappers were some of the worst he’s ever seen, and as Robin, he’s seen quite a few. They barely had him for thirty minutes, and that includes the time spent at the gas station. Their license plates got called in twice: once from the store clerk who found their license plate by checking the security footage, and a second time when Dick kicked out one of the car’s taillights and someone behind them saw Dick’s hand sticking out. And then—this part still makes Dick laugh—they just parked the car right in front of their so-called hideout. The hideout belonged to a friend, but they forgot about the silent alarm, so when they tripped it and didn’t key in the code to turn it off, the police were alerted a third time.

Bruce was probably tracking their call, too, but it wasn’t necessary because the police showed up at the car repair shop five minutes after Dick and his kidnappers did. Dick was almost embarrassed about getting knocked in the head by one of them, but he felt a little better when he found out that both of them were on their high school’s wrestling team—or at least, the EMT who apparently went to high school with them had been pretty sure.

“Richard’s right over here.”

Dick peels his arm off his face and opens his eyes when he hears the nurse. The curtain is pulled back and Bruce is standing there. The amount of relief Dick feels just by seeing Bruce is something he won’t admit to. It almost feels like that time he’d lost his mom at a craft store as a kid, specifically the moment when they’d found each other again and she’d pulled him into her arms. She’d been just as relieved as Dick, so much that she hadn’t berated him at all for running off. She’d just held him close and whispered _Dick, thank god_ while pressing kisses into his hair.

“Dick, thank god.” Bruce looks like he’s experiencing a similar feeling, albeit the flipped version, the one his mom had felt. Or something close to it. Then, to the nurse, “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Dick says, quirking his lips into a small, brief smile.

Bruce’s brows furrow, looking Dick over and lingering on the bandage over his head where he’d needed stitches. Bruce is rigid, uncertain. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, Bruce, honest,” Dick tries to assure. He sits up, moving his hand to reach for Bruce. Before he can complete the action, Bruce tugs him into a tight hug and it’s not until that moment that something in Dick’s chest unravels and he realizes he’s okay.

Bruce pulls back for a moment, scanning Dick’s face and looking like he wants to say something. He doesn’t. Just brushes Dick’s hair back before pressing a kiss against his forehead. Then he pulls Dick back into the hug, resting his cheek against the side of Dick’s head that’s still intact.

“Are you mad?” The evening started with a fight, one that hadn’t really been finished, and if Dick hadn’t left just to piss Bruce off, none of this would have happened. Though, the look on Bruce’s face and the heaviness on his shoulders tells Dick that he doesn’t care about that right now.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” Dick holds his breath, waiting for the inevitable addendum. “We can talk about this when you’re feeling better.”

So, no punishment, but the conversation—the argument—isn’t over.

Dick scowls but, for whatever reason, he doesn’t pull away from Bruce’s hold.

Bruce shifts to sit beside Dick on the bed, keeping one arm wrapped around Dick’s shoulder in a side hug. Dick rests his head against Bruce’s shoulder, and Bruce presses a kiss into Dick’s hair. Dick doesn’t mind.

“Tired?” Bruce asks after a while.

Dick nods.

“Get some sleep. We’ll likely be here for a few hours.”

Dick groans. “Why can’t we just go home? I feel fine.” Well, relatively.

Bruce squeezes Dick’s shoulder. “According to your doctor, you have a concussion and likely a linear skull fracture. I doubt they will be discharging you anytime soon.”

“Yeah, but can’t you Brucie Wayne us out of this?”

“Not this time, chum.” Dick can’t see Bruce’s face from this angle, but his voice sounds like he’s frowning.

As much as Dick wants to argue his way out of the ER, he also wants to lie down again. His headache is getting worse and so is the nausea. He already threw up once and it’s not exactly something he wants to have happen again. Especially since Dick’s cherry slushie turned the vomit red, which understandably concerned the medical staff.

Dick sighs and lifts his head, and Bruce mirrors the action by pulling away and standing up. Dick lies down and Bruce hesitates before moving to a chair. Dick reaches to grab Bruce’s hand, which Bruce accepts immediately.

They’re quiet, Dick dozing for a while until the doctor comes back with the CT results, confirming both the concussion and the linear skull fracture. The good news is that Dick will live, the bad news is that he has to stay put for a few hours so they can observe him and make sure nothing goes wrong. He supposes it could’ve been worse, though; Bruce reminds him that they could’ve admitted Dick and kept him overnight.

Bruce calls Alfred to give him the update after the doctor leaves. Alfred didn’t come along because Barbara had already left for patrol and he didn’t like the idea of her being on her own _and_ not having anyone to assist her via comms as needed. It had been the right decision, but when Bruce hands Dick the phone to talk to Alfred, Dick hears concern and worry and guilt in the man’s voice. It hadn’t been easy for Alfred to refrain from running to Dick’s bedside tonight, and he’s sure Alfred will hover for the next few days, but Dick won’t mind.

The phone call ends with Alfred passing on well-wishes from Babs and an exchange of _I love you_ s between Alfred and Dick. Alfred lets Dick hang up first, and then it’s just Dick and Bruce once more.

Bruce not exactly being the best conversationalist and Dick being very much concussed, Dick decides to sleep some more. But before Dick falls asleep, Bruce’s chair shifts.

Leaning closer to Dick, Bruce murmurs, “I’m . . . I _do_ trust you, Dick. And I’m proud of you—every day.”

They had exchanged a lot of hurtful words during their argument, but right now, none of them feel true. Not what Dick had said, and not what Bruce had said or hadn’t said. Funny how a crisis can make everything else feel so small and insignificant, if even for a moment.

“I know, B.” Dick reaches blindly for Bruce’s hand, squeezing it when he finds it. “Love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! If you're feeling up to it, comments and kudos are always appreciated <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://daringyounggrayson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
